The Bruins chose to leave star goalie Tim Thomas in Boston, along with captain Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron, but Khudobin was just as good as Thomas in his debut with the team.

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``I thought he played phenomenal,' Tyler Seguin said. ``Early in the game he was great and made some big saves and he played a solid 60 minutes.'

The 25-year-old admitted to having some butterflies early in the game, but was pleased by his overall performance.

``I got a couple shots in the first couple minutes and I felt good,' Khudobin said. ``The guys helped me a lot from the start and (Marty) Turco talked to me and said `let's go have some fun.''

Benoit Pouliot, Greg Zanon and Milan Lucic scored for the Bruins.

Jason Spezza scored for the Senators. Ben Bishop, who missed the past four games with a lower body injury, stopped 24 shots.

A win would have allowed the Senators to clinch seventh in the Eastern Conference and while some may see this game as a missed opportunity, captain Daniel Alfredsson said there has been some emotional letdown since clinching a playoff berth.

``We really tried to stay upbeat and keep our game going after the four wins and clinching the playoff spot, but just emotionally it's been tough to regroup and get the game to where we want,' Alfredsson said.

``(Thursday) it was the same thing. Both teams played pretty good, but it's not close to being a playoff-type game or the intensity that we're going to see next week. It's more mental than anything.'

With the Bruins leading 2-1, Ottawa's Erik Karlsson missed a wide-open net with just over six minutes remaining in the third. The Senators had a number of great chances to tie the game, but were never able to capitalize.

Shortly after, Lucic scored his 26th of the season to make it 3-1.

With this being a matchup of potential first-round opponents more was expected from this game despite the absence of some key players, but Lucic summed it up perfectly.

``To be honest it almost seemed like no one really wanted to get hurt,' Lucic said. ``We've had our battles against these guys and we don't back down from them and they don't back down from us.'

The Bruins made it 2-0 early in the second as Zanon's slap shot from the point caught a piece of Bishop's glove and trickled across the goal line.

``I don't know how it went in,' Bishop said. ``I must have just lost it for a second and it went off the tip of my glove. It's one of those one in a thousand.'

After a number of great chances the Senators, who had outshot the Bruins 17-7 in the first, finally found a way to beat Khudobin at the 13:56 of the second.

Spezza, with his team-leading 34th of the season, fired a shot that hit the post and went in off Khudobin's back to cut the lead in half.

The Bruins opened the scoring midway through the first period as Pouliot's tap-in completed a two-on-one with Brian Rolston.

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